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CU-Boulder 'unlikely' to nab state funds for proposed aerospace engineering building

Campus asking for $4.8 million in 2016-2017 for new East Campus structure

By Sarah Kuta

Staff Writer

Posted:
01/10/2016 09:30:00 AM MST

Updated:
01/11/2016 09:07:27 AM MST

The University of Colorado is asking the state for $4.8 million to start work on a proposed aerospace engineering building, though the state's challenging budget situation next year likely means the funding won't come through.

CU wants to build a new 138,500-square-foot facility on East Campus to house its aerospace engineering department, which has had to limit enrollment because of its lack of space.

In addition to the $4.8 million request for fiscal year 2016-2017 to design the building, the campus plans to ask the state for $23.5 million in 2017-2018 for construction.

CU would come up with the rest of the funding — about $52 million, according to planning documents.

Gov. John Hickenlooper's 2016-2017 budget proposal provides funding only for ongoing capital construction projects, which means the aerospace building, all other CU requests and a host of other projects across the state were left out.

The governor's plan includes $373 million in spending cuts — including a $20 million cut for higher education — due to a complicated set of factors, including increased costs for K-12 education and health care, refunds under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights and a projected deficit.

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The university system requested funding for an interdisciplinary building and data center on the Anschutz Medical Campus, an engineering and physical sciences building on the Denver campus and the renovation of an engineering and applied sciences building on the Colorado Springs campus.

"It's going to be a challenging year for the state budget and the governor's budget proposal included very limited funding for capital construction," said Todd Saliman, chief financial officer for the CU system. "So while I never say never, it is highly unlikely that state funding will be available for new projects in the next fiscal year."

Saliman, a former Boulder lawmaker and budget director under Gov. Bill Ritter, said the long-term funding outlook for the state means it could be "quite a while" before Colorado has additional funds for capital projects.

That's not to say that lawmakers weren't impressed with CU's proposal for the building, Saliman said.

The university made its case for the aerospace project at a capital development committee meeting last month, explaining how the new building would increase CU's capacity to graduate highly skilled aerospace engineers who could stay in the state and work.

U.S. News & World Report ranks CU's aerospace engineering program No. 10 in the country for both graduate and undergraduate students and CU is NASA's top-funded public university, Chancellor Phil DiStefano told the committee.

Last year, the aerospace engineering department received 1,075 applications, but could enroll only 117 due to space limitations, DiStefano said.

Aerospace engineering enrollment is expected to grow to 1,027 students by 2020, DiStefano told the committee.

"This is a good thing because it supports a key industry in the state of Colorado," DiStefano said.

The four-story building will include an enclosed rooftop for testing drones and ground robots, labs for building and testing small satellites and human space flight experiments among other features.

Space vacated by aerospace in the Engineering Center will be used by other departments within the College of Engineering and Applied Science, which is projected to grow 43.5 percent by 2019.

The campus has asked for funding for the aerospace project every year since 2010-2011, according to state budget documents. Planners overhauled the project in 2014, proposing a more expensive, free-standing building instead of an addition to the Engineering Center.

CU budget officials said they will reassess their plans if state funding does not come through.

"We made a compelling case about the importance to the university and to the state and I guess I figure it's too early to tell," said Kelly Fox, chief financial officer on the Boulder campus.

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